Revolution and American Indians: “Marxism is as Alien to My Culture as Capitalism”

This is one of the most striking and intelligent articles I’ve ever read, encouraging a total reconfiguring of how to view capitalism and revolution. Russell Means was a leader in the American Indian Movement (AIM) of the 1960s and 70s, and remains one of the most outspoken Native Americans in the U.S.

I came across this essay while researching for my upcoming critique of Marxism, and was blown away by its clarity. This is Means’ most famous essay. It was published in Ward Churchill’s book “Marxism and Native Americans”, under the title “The Same Old Song”, and has appeared elsewhere under the names “Marxism is a European Tradition,” and “For America to Live, Europe Must Die.” Yet, it is actually not very available on the internet. I hope by republishing it I will raise some much-needed debate on the nature of the revolutionary project today.

I want to point out one difference I have with the essay, namely that the “European culture” Russell Means criticizes is capitalism, and before it could commit genocide and ecocide on the rest of the planet, this social system had to be imposed upon Europe first. Silvia Federici’s book Caliban and the Witch is key to my understanding of these violent origins of capitalism. The importance of this distinction is to clarify what Means says at the end of the essay, that he is not making a racial argument, but a cultural argument. For me, we need more than that, we need a political/economic argument which cuts to the core of why capitalism is destroying the planet and making us all miserable. Only then does revolutionary change appear possible. [alex]

“For America to Live, Europe Must Die”

Russell Means

The following speech was given by Russell Means in July 1980, before several thousand people who had assembled from all over the world for the Black Hills International Survival Gathering, in the Black Hills of South Dakota. It is Russell Means’s most famous speech.

“The only possible opening for a statement of this kind is that I detest writing. The process itself epitomizes the European concept of “legitimate” thinking; what is written has an importance that is denied the spoken. My culture, the Lakota culture, has an oral tradition, so I ordinarily reject writing. It is one of the white world’s ways of destroying the cultures of non-European peoples, the imposing of an abstraction over the spoken relationship of a people.

So what you read here is not what I’ve written. It’s what I’ve said and someone else has written down. I will allow this because it seems that the only way to communicate with the white world is through the dead, dry leaves of a book. I don’t really care whether my words reach whites or not. They have already demonstrated through their history that they cannot hear, cannot see; they can only read (of course, there are exceptions, but the exceptions only prove the rule). I’m more concerned with American Indian people, students and others, who have begun to be absorbed into the white world through universities and other institutions. But even then it’s a marginal sort of concern. It’s very possible to grow into a red face with a white mind; and if that’s a person’s individual choice, so be it, but I have no use for them. This is part of the process of cultural genocide being waged by Europeans against American Indian peoples’ today. My concern is with those American Indians who choose to resist this genocide, but who may be confused as to how to proceed.

(You notice I use the term American Indian rather than Native American or Native indigenous people or Amerindian when referring to my people. There has been some controversy about such terms, and frankly, at this point, I find it absurd. Primarily it seems that American Indian is being rejected as European in origin–which is true. But all the above terms are European in origin; the only non-European way is to speak of Lakota–or, more precisely, of Oglala, Brule, etc.–and of the Dineh, the Miccousukee, and all the rest of the several hundred correct tribal names.

(There is also some confusion about the word Indian, a mistaken belief that it refers somehow to the country, India. When Columbus washed up on the beach in the Caribbean, he was not looking for a country called India. Europeans were calling that country Hindustan in 1492. Look it up on the old maps. Columbus called the tribal people he met “Indio,” from the Italian in dio, meaning “in God.”)

It takes a strong effort on the part of each American Indian not to become Europeanized. The strength for this effort can only come from the traditional ways, the traditional values that our elders retain. It must come from the hoop, the four directions, the relations: it cannot come from the pages of a book or a thousand books. No European can ever teach a Lakota to be Lakota, a Hopi to be Hopi. A master’s degree in “Indian Studies” or in “education” or in anything else cannot make a person into a human being or provide knowledge into traditional ways. It can only make you into a mental European, an outsider.

I should be clear about something here, because there seems to be some confusion about it. When I speak of Europeans or mental Europeans, I’m not allowing for false distinctions. I’m not saying that on the one hand there are the by-products of a few thousand years of genocidal, reactionary, European intellectual development which is bad; and on the other hand there is some new revolutionary intellectual development which is good. I’m referring here to the so-called theories of Marxism and anarchism and “leftism” in general. I don’t believe these theories can be separated from the rest of the of the European intellectual tradition. It’s really just the same old song.

The process began much earlier. Newton, for example, “revolutionized” physics and the so-called natural sciences by reducing the physical universe to a linear mathematical equation. Descartes did the same thing with culture. John Locke did it with politics, and Adam Smith did it with economics. Each one of these “thinkers” took a piece of the spirituality of human existence and converted it into code, an abstraction. They picked up where Christianity ended: they “secularized” Christian religion, as the “scholars” like to say–and in doing so they made Europe more able and ready to act as an expansionist culture. Each of these intellectual revolutions served to abstract the European mentality even further, to remove the wonderful complexity and spirituality from the universe and replace it with a logical sequence: one, two, three. Answer!

This is what has come to be termed “efficiency” in the European mind. Whatever is mechanical is perfect; whatever seems to work at the moment–that is, proves the mechanical model to be the right one–is considered correct, even when it is clearly untrue. This is why “truth” changes so fast in the European mind; the answers which result from such a process are only stopgaps, only temporary, and must be continuously discarded in favor of new stopgaps which support the mechanical models and keep them (the models) alive.

Hegel and Marx were heirs to the thinking of Newton, Descartes, Locke and Smith. Hegel finished the process of secularizing theology–and that is put in his own terms–he secularized the religious thinking through which Europe understood the universe. Then Marx put Hegel’s philosophy in terms of “materialism,” which is to say that Marx despiritualized Hegel’s work altogether. Again, this is in Marx’ own terms. And this is now seen as the future revolutionary potential of Europe. Europeans may see this as revolutionary, but American Indians see it simply as still more of that same old European conflict between being and gaining. The intellectual roots of a new Marxist form of European imperialism lie in Marx’–and his followers’–links to the tradition of Newton, Hegel and the others.

Being is a spiritual proposition. Gaining is a material act. Traditionally, American Indians have always attempted to be the best people they could. Part of that spiritual process was and is to give away wealth, to discard wealth in order not to gain. Material gain is an indicator of false status among traditional people, while it is “proof that the system works” to Europeans. Clearly, there are two completely opposing views at issue here, and Marxism is very far over to the other side from the American Indian view. But let’s look at a major implication of this; it is not merely an intellectual debate.

The European materialist tradition of despiritualizing the universe is very similar to the mental process which goes into dehumanizing another person. And who seems most expert at dehumanizing other people? And why? Soldiers who have seen a lot of combat learn to do this to the enemy before going back into combat. Murderers do it before going out to commit murder. Nazi SS guards did it to concentration camp inmates. Cops do it. Corporation leaders do it to the workers they send into uranium mines and steel mills. Politicians do it to everyone in sight. And what the process has in common for each group doing the dehumanizing is that it makes it all right to kill and otherwise destroy other people. One of the Christian commandments says, “Thou shalt not kill,” at least not humans, so the trick is to mentally convert the victims into nonhumans. Then you can proclaim violation of your own commandment as a virtue.

In terms of the despiritualization of the universe, the mental process works so that it becomes virtuous to destroy the planet. Terms like progress and development are used as cover words here, the way victory and freedom are used to justify butchery in the dehumanization process. For example, a real-estate speculator may refer to “developing” a parcel of ground by opening a gravel quarry; development here means total, permanent destruction, with the earth itself removed. But European logic has gained a few tons of gravel with which more land can be “developed” through the construction of road beds. Ultimately, the whole universe is open–in the European view–to this sort of insanity.

Most important here, perhaps, is the fact that Europeans feel no sense of loss in all this. After all, their philosophers have despiritualized reality, so there is no satisfaction (for them) to be gained in simply observing the wonder of a mountain or a lake or a people in being. No, satisfaction is measured in terms of gaining material. So the mountain becomes gravel, and the lake becomes coolant for a factory, and the people are rounded up for processing through the indoctrination mills Europeans like to call schools.

But each new piece of that “progress” ups the ante out in the real world. Take fuel for the industrial machine as an example. Little more than two centuries ago, nearly everyone used wood–a replenishable, natural item–as fuel for the very human needs of cooking and staying warm. Along came the Industrial Revolution and coal became the dominant fuel, as production became the social imperative for Europe. Pollution began to become a problem in the cities, and the earth was ripped open to provide coal whereas wood had always simply been gathered or harvested at no great expense to the environment. Later, oil became the major fuel, as the technology of production was perfected through a series of scientific “revolutions.” Pollution increased dramatically, and nobody yet knows what the environmental costs of pumping all that oil out of the ground will really be in the long run. Now there’s an “energy crisis,” and uranium is becoming the dominant fuel.

Capitalists, at least, can be relied upon to develop uranium as fuel only at the rate which they can show a good profit. That’s their ethic, and maybe they will buy some time. Marxists, on the other hand, can be relied upon to develop uranium fuel as rapidly as possible simply because it’s the most “efficient” production fuel available. That’s their ethic, and I fail to see where it’s preferable. Like I said, Marxism is right smack in the middle of European tradition. It’s the same old song.

There’s a rule of thumb which can be applied here. You cannot judge the real nature of a European revolutionary doctrine on the basis of the changes it proposes to make within the European power structure and society. You can only judge it by the effects it will have on non-European peoples. This is because every revolution in European history has served to reinforce Europe’s tendencies and abilities to export destruction to other peoples, other cultures and the environment itself. I defy anyone to point out an example where this is not true.

So now we, as American Indian people, are asked to believe that a “new” European revolutionary doctrine such as Marxism will reverse the negative effects of European history on us. European power relations are to be adjusted once again, and that’s supposed to make things better for all of us. But what does this really mean?

Right now, today, we who live on the Pine Ridge Reservation are living in what white society has designated a “National Sacrifice Area.” What this means is that we have a lot of uranium deposits here, and white culture (not us) needs this uranium as energy production material. The cheapest, most efficient way for industry to extract and deal with the processing of this uranium is to dump the waste by-products right here at the digging sites. Right here where we live. This waste is radioactive and will make the entire region uninhabitable forever. This is considered by the industry, and by the white society that created this industry, to be an “acceptable” price to pay for energy resource development. Along the way they also plan to drain the water table under this part of South Dakota as part of the industrial process, so the region becomes doubly uninhabitable. The same sort of thing is happening down in the land of the Navajo and Hopi, up in the land of the Northern Cheyenne and Crow, and elsewhere. Thirty percent of the coal in the West and half of the uranium deposits in the United States have been found to lie under reservation land, so there is no way this can be called a minor issue.

We are resisting being turned into a National Sacrifice Area. We are resisting being turned into a national sacrifice people. The costs of this industrial process are not acceptable to us. It is genocide to dig uranium here and drain the water table–no more, no less.

Now let’s suppose that in our resistance to extermination we begin to seek allies (we have). Let’s suppose further that we were to take revolutionary Marxism at its word: that it intends nothing less than the complete overthrow of the European capitalists order which has presented this threat to our very existence. This would seem to be a natural alliance for American Indian people to enter into. After all, as the Marxists say, it is the capitalists who set us up to be a national sacrifice. This is true as far as it goes.

But, as I’ve tried to point out, this “truth” is very deceptive. Revolutionary Marxism is committed to even further perpetuation and perfection of the very industrial process which is destroying us all. It offers only to “redistribute” the results–the money, maybe–of this industrialization to a wider section of the population. It offers to take wealth from the capitalists and pass it around; but in order to do so, Marxism must maintain the industrial system. Once again, the power relations within European society will have to be altered, but once again the effects upon American Indian peoples here and non-Europeans elsewhere will remain the same. This is much the same as when power was redistributed from the church to private business during the so-called bourgeois revolution. European society changed a bit, at least superficially, but its conduct toward non-Europeans continued as before. You can see what the American Revolution of 1776 did for American Indians. It’s the same old song.

Revolutionary Marxism, like industrial society in other forms, seeks to “rationalize” all people in relation to industry–maximum industry, maximum production. It is a doctrine that despises the American Indian spiritual tradition, our cultures, our lifeways. Marx himself called us “precapitalists” and “primitive.” Precapitalist simply means that, in his view, we would eventually discover capitalism and become capitalists; we have always been economically retarded in Marxist terms. The only manner in which American Indian people could participate in a Marxist revolution would be to join the industrial system, to become factory workers, or “proletarians,” as Marx called them. The man was very clear about the fact that his revolution could only occur through the struggle of the proletariat, that the existence of a massive industrial system is a precondition of a successful Marxist society.

I think there’s a problem with language here. Christians, capitalists, Marxists. All of them have been revolutionary in their own minds, but none of them really means revolution. What they really mean is continuation. They do what they do in order that European culture can continue to exist and develop according to its needs. Like germs, European culture goes through occasional convulsions, even divisions within itself, in order to go on living and growing. This isn’t a revolution we’re talking about, but a means to continue what already exists. An amoeba is still an amoeba after it reproduces. But maybe comparing European culture to an amoeba isn’t really fair to the amoeba. Maybe cancer cells are a more accurate comparison because European culture has historically destroyed everything around it; and it will eventually destroy itself.

So, in order for us to really join forces with Marxism, we American Indians would have to accept the national sacrifice of our homeland; we would have to commit cultural suicide and become industrialized and Europeanized.

At this point, I’ve got to stop and ask myself whether I’m being too harsh. Marxism has something of a history. Does this history bear out my observations? I look to the process of industrialization in the Soviet Union since 1920 and I see that these Marxists have done what it took the English Industrial Revolution 300 years to do; and the Marxists did it in 60 years. I see that the territory of the USSR used to contain a number of tribal peoples and that they have been crushed to make way for the factories. The Soviets refer to this as “the National Question,” the question of whether the tribal peoples had the right to exist as peoples; and they decided the tribal peoples were an acceptable sacrifice to the industrial needs. I look to China and I see the same thing. I look to Vietnam and I see Marxists imposing an industrial order and rooting out the indigenous tribal mountain people.

I hear the leading Soviet scientist saying that when uranium is exhausted, then alternatives will be found. I see the Vietnamese taking over a nuclear power plant abandoned by the U.S. military. Have they dismantled and destroyed it? No, they are using it. I see China exploding nuclear bombs, developing uranium reactors, and preparing a space program in order to colonize and exploit the planets the same as the Europeans colonized and exploited this hemisphere. It’s the same old song, but maybe with a faster tempo this time.

The statement of the Soviet scientist is very interesting. Does he know what this alternative energy source will be? No, he simply has faith. Science will find a way. I hear revolutionary Marxists saying that the destruction of the environment, pollution, and radiation will all be controlled. And I see them act upon their words. Do they know how these things will be controlled? No, they simply have faith. Science will find a way. Industrialization is fine and necessary. How do they know this? Faith. Science will find a way. Faith of this sort has always been known in Europe as religion. Science has become the new European religion for both capitalists and Marxists; they are truly inseparable; they are part and parcel of the same culture. So, in both theory and practice, Marxism demands that non-European peoples give up their values, their traditions, their cultural existence altogether. We will all be industrialized science addicts in a Marxist society.

I do not believe that capitalism itself is really responsible for the situation in which American Indians have been declared a national sacrifice. No, it is the European tradition; European culture itself is responsible. Marxism is just the latest continuation of this tradition, not a solution to it. To ally with Marxism is to ally with the very same forces that declare us an acceptable cost.

There is another way. There is the traditional Lakota way and the ways of the American Indian peoples. It is the way that knows that humans do not have the right to degrade Mother Earth, that there are forces beyond anything the European mind has conceived, that humans must be in harmony with all relations or the relations will eventually eliminate the disharmony. A lopsided emphasis on humans by humans–the Europeans’ arrogance of acting as though they were beyond the nature of all related things–can only result in a total disharmony and a readjustment which cuts arrogant humans down to size, gives them a taste of that reality beyond their grasp or control and restores the harmony. There is no need for a revolutionary theory to bring this about; it’s beyond human control. The nature peoples of this planet know this and so they do not theorize about it. Theory is an abstract; our knowledge is real.

Distilled to its basic terms, European faith–including the new faith in science–equals a belief that man is God. Europe has always sought a Messiah, whether that be the man Jesus Christ or the man Karl Marx or the man Albert Einstein. American Indians know this to be totally absurd. Humans are the weakest of all creatures, so weak that other creatures are willing to give up their flesh that we may live. Humans are able to survive only through the exercise of rationality since they lack the abilities of other creatures to gain food through the use of fang and claw.

But rationality is a curse since it can cause humans to forget the natural order of things in ways other creatures do not. A wolf never forgets his or her place in the natural order. American Indians can. Europeans almost always do. We pray our thanks to the deer, our relations, for allowing us their flesh to eat; Europeans simply take the flesh for granted and consider the deer inferior. After all, Europeans consider themselves godlike in their rationalism and science. God is the Supreme Being; all else must be inferior.

All European tradition, Marxism included, has conspired to defy the natural order of all things. Mother Earth has been abused, the powers have been abused, and this cannot go on forever. No theory can alter that simple fact. Mother Earth will retaliate, the whole environment will retaliate, and the abusers will be eliminated. Things come full circle, back to where they started. That’s revolution. And that’s a prophecy of my people, of the Hopi people and of other correct peoples.

American Indians have been trying to explain this to Europeans for centuries. But, as I said earlier, Europeans have proven themselves unable to hear. The natural order will win out, and the offenders will die out, the way deer die when they offend the harmony by over-populating a given region. It’s only a matter of time until what Europeans call “a major catastrophe of global proportions” will occur. It is the role of American Indian peoples, the role of all natural beings, to survive. A part of our survival is to resist. We resist not to overthrow a government or to take political power, but because it is natural to resist extermination, to survive. We don’t want power over white institutions; we want white institutions to disappear. That’s revolution.

American Indians are still in touch with these realities–the prophecies, the traditions of our ancestors. We learn from the elders, from nature, from the powers. And when the catastrophe is over, we American Indian peoples will still be here to inhabit the hemisphere. I don’t care if it’s only a handful living high in the Andes. American Indian people will survive; harmony will be reestablished. That’s revolution.

At this point, perhaps I should be very clear about another matter, one which should already be clear as a result of what I’ve said. But confusion breeds easily these days, so I want to hammer home this point. When I use the term European, I’m not referring to a skin color or a particular genetic structure. What I’m referring to is a mind-set, a worldview that is a product of the development of European culture. People are not genetically encoded to hold this outlook; they are acculturated to hold it. The same is true for American Indians or for the members of any culture.

It is possible for an American Indian to share European values, a European worldview. We have a term for these people; we call them “apples”–red on the outside (genetics) and white on the inside (their values). Other groups have similar terms: Blacks have their “oreos”; Hispanos have “Coconuts” and so on. And, as I said before, there are exceptions to the white norm: people who are white on the outside, but not white inside. I’m not sure what term should be applied to them other than “human beings.”

What I’m putting out here is not a racial proposition but a cultural proposition. Those who ultimately advocate and defend the realities of European culture and its industrialism are my enemies. Those who resist it, who struggle against it, are my allies, the allies of American Indian people. And I don’t give a damn what their skin color happens to be. Caucasian is the white term for the white race: European is an outlook I oppose.

The Vietnamese Communists are not exactly what you might consider genetic Caucasians, but they are now functioning as mental Europeans. The same holds true for Chinese Communists, for Japanese capitalists or Bantu Catholics or Peter “MacDollar” down at the Navajo Reservation or Dickie Wilson up here at Pine Ridge. There is no racism involved in this, just an acknowledgment of the mind and spirit that make up culture.

In Marxist terms I suppose I’m a “cultural nationalist.” I work first with my people, the traditional Lakota people, because we hold a common worldview and share an immediate struggle. Beyond this, I work with other traditional American Indian peoples, again because of a certain commonality in worldview and form of struggle. Beyond that, I work with anyone who has experienced the colonial oppression of Europe and who resists its cultural and industrial totality. Obviously, this includes genetic Caucasians who struggle to resist the dominant norms of European culture. The Irish and the Basques come immediately to mind, but there are many others.

I work primarily with my own people, with my own community. Other people who hold non-European perspectives should do the same. I believe in the slogan, “Trust your brother’s vision,” although I’d like to add sisters into the bargain. I trust the community and the culturally based vision of all the races that naturally resist industrialization and human extinction. Clearly, individual whites can share in this, given only that they have reached the awareness that continuation of the industrial imperatives of Europe is not a vision, but species suicide. White is one of the sacred colors of the Lakota people–red, yellow, white and black. The four directions. The four seasons. The four periods of life and aging. The four races of humanity. Mix red, yellow, white and black together and you get brown, the color of the fifth race. This is a natural ordering of things. It therefore seems natural to me to work with all races, each with its own special meaning, identity and message.

But there is a peculiar behavior among most Caucasians. As soon as I become critical of Europe and its impact on other cultures, they become defensive. They begin to defend themselves. But I’m not attacking them personally; I’m attacking Europe. In personalizing my observations on Europe they are personalizing European culture, identifying themselves with it. By defending themselves in this context, they are ultimately defending the death culture. This is a confusion which must be overcome, and it must be overcome in a hurry. None of us has energy to waste in such false struggles.

Caucasians have a more positive vision to offer humanity than European culture. I believe this. But in order to attain this vision it is necessary for Caucasians to step outside European culture–alongside the rest of humanity–to see Europe for what it is and what it does.

To cling to capitalism and Marxism and all other “isms” is simply to remain within European culture. There is no avoiding this basic fact. As a fact, this constitutes a choice. Understand that the choice is based on culture, not race. Understand that to choose European culture and industrialism is to choose to be my enemy. And understand that the choice is yours, not mine.

This leads me back to address those American Indians who are drifting through the universities, the city slums, and other European institutions. If you are there to resist the oppressor in accordance with your traditional ways, so be it. I don’t know how you manage to combine the two, but perhaps you will succeed. But retain your sense of reality. Beware of coming to believe the white world now offers solutions to the problems it confronts us with. Beware, too, of allowing the words of native people to be twisted to the advantages of our enemies. Europe invented the practice of turning words around on themselves. You need only look to the treaties between American Indian peoples and various European governments to know that this is true. Draw your strength from who you are.

A culture which regularly confuses revolt with resistance, has nothing helpful to teach you and nothing to offer you as a way of life. Europeans have long since lost all touch with reality, if ever they were in touch with who you are as American Indians.

So, I suppose to conclude this, I should state clearly that leading anyone toward Marxism is the last thing on my mind. Marxism is as alien to my culture as capitalism and Christianity are. In fact, I can say I don’t think I’m trying to lead anyone toward anything. To some extent I tried to be a “leader,” in the sense that the white media like to use that term, when the American Indian Movement was a young organization. This was a result of a confusion I no longer have. You cannot be everything to everyone. I do not propose to be used in such a fashion by my enemies. I am not a leader. I am an Oglala Lakota patriot. That is all I want and all I need to be. And I am very comfortable with who I am.”

35 comments

*Sighs* I woke up thinking about the transition, violent recognition of the need to seek a new logic beyond the logic of capitalism. It will seem violent. It will be violent and much more than Galileo’s revelation to the Church. I saw, “Meeting of the Minds”: The Future of Capitalism. The basic question of moving beyond capitalism was quickly brushed aside and nothing was concluded. Everyone seemed optimistic that some new band-aide only need be applied. Some new balance struck within the same logic. Some new corporate responsibility after a humble mea culpa: but ego doesn’t work that way. The powers that be, will no more adapt, than the huge dinosaurs did. Means makes it very clear that God lives as the idol that the advancement of reason has made of that contemplation: a material reality to be conquered and supplanted, unfortunately sans the wisdom. “Being is a spiritual proposition.” This should be the conclusion supported by premises describing what the behavior of global relations, systems, governments and all human endeavors ought to be. Of course he forgot to name the primary flavor of all conversations about what many see as intangibles: skepticism. The final dagger proffered by philosophy regarding questions on all things metaphysical. Can we trust our own perceptions? That’s debatable? Every capable human being has to supplant and surpass the conclusions of the past few and rare theorists who have shaped our world. We must think for ourselves. The evidence is right in front of us. I am adding my voice to the voice of my brothers whatever their exterior. We-no-longer-have-time for such self indulgent sophistry. It’s not working: period.

CK: ” want to point out one difference I have with the essay, namely that the “European culture” Russell Means criticizes is capitalism”
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That’s not accurate. As Russell Means stated articulately in this article:

“I do not believe that capitalism itself is really responsible for the situation in which American Indians have been declared a national sacrifice. No, it is the European tradition; European culture itself is responsible. ”

In fact, he embraced Capitalism at its purest form. Since 70s he has been an unrepentant supporter of libertarian political causes.

In this interview as recent as 2006, Means decried “big federal government”, extolled “virtue” of personal responsibility, against minimum wage and support free market capitalism. I wonder how close is the libertarian philosophy to Means”s Indian spirituality?

Means’s so-called cultural criticism of Marxism is so far off the base. I don’t think he understand what is Marxism at all (listen to the interview, he tried to mock Communism but can’t even recall the phrase “bourgeois democracy”).

Marxism, for all its faults, provide a crucial framework to analyze and transcend the capitalist system. Renouncing Marxism as philosopher Merleau-Ponty noted is to “dig the grave of Reason in history. After that there can be only dreams or adventures.”

thanks for commenting. you’re right that after Means gave this speech, he went on to get involved in the Libertarian Party. and the cheesy video you linked (with those awful racist hosts) does show Means making some seemingly contradictory statements.

but your comment has entirely avoided responding to THIS article. it amounts to an attack on Russell Means the MAN, rather than the IDEAS which he articulated here.

if you want to defend Marxism, defend it. but do it by proving him wrong, not by pigeonholing him as a libertarian. i would bet that if Means had been able to find decent Marxist or progressive white allies back in the 80s, he never would have had to turn to the Libertarian Party for white support. instead, the Marxists he encountered apparently had no problem justifying the murder of Indian culture in favor of industrial development, which is the response he got to this article by the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), who argued in an entirely racist fashion that the genocide of American Indians was a progressive advance for humanity.

so, is Means right? is the Marxist position that the entire world has to be ‘proletarianized’ in order to transcend capitalism? is revolution simply a matter of ‘expanding productive capacity’, regardless of the destruction of thousands of indigenous cultures?

these are pressing questions for the Marxist movement today, as we see in Bolivia and Ecuador RIGHT NOW there are huge conflicts between Marxist governments and indigenous-led social movements over the question of “development” of natural resources, a development that means destruction of the ecosystem in which indigenous people STILL live.

I really don’t feel compelling to defend Marxism from Means’s attack since it has very little to do with Marxism. Means’s notion of Marxism appeared to be an unilinear model of development in which the society evolves in stages corresponding to its material production capacity. At best, this is a bastardized version of historical materialism that definitely not Marx or marxists (perhaps except RCP) espoused.

In the latter part of his life, Marx immersed himself with Russian literature (he learned Russian at age of 50s). In a letter to a Russian comrade (Zasulich) Marx explicitly suggested Russia agrarian communal villages could be a starting point for a socialist transformation that might bypass the brutal process of the primitive accumulation of capital. And some characteristics of rural communes could be incorporated into future communist society.

Marx therefore, denied he had created a unilinear theory of history and that he produced a deterministic model of social development in which Russia (or India…) was bound to evolve in the manner of Western capitalism.

So the charge of “proletarianized the world” attributed to Marx is entirely false.

Second, Means attacked on the enlightenment’s value and his scien-techno scepticism aimed not only to Marxism but entire western body of thought. Means criticism, fashionable as it sounds however were not original. In Confession, Leo Tolstoy criticized the notion of absolute faith in science long ago. Then what’s alternative did Means offer?
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AK: i would bet that if Means had been able to find decent Marxist or progressive white allies back in the 80s, he never would have had to turn to the Libertarian Party for white support.
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I can’t see how could Marxist is responsible to Means’s libertarian transformation? Apply this logic in similar vein , you could held Socialist responsible to Holocaust since it was Socialists failure to carry out the revolution, hence German workers had none but Nazis to support.

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these are pressing questions for the Marxist movement today, as we see in Bolivia and Ecuador RIGHT NOW there are huge conflicts between Marxist governments and indigenous-led social movements over the question of “development” of natural resources, a development that means destruction of the ecosystem in which indigenous people STILL live.
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Bolivia and Ecuador have Marxist governments? it is accurate as much as Obama is 2 M (Marxist & Muslim). My position? Power to people.

We may disagree in many points but it is important to stress we have the same conclusion:

thanks for commenting again. glad to continue the conversation, this is how we learn from one another.

i’m perplexed how you can say that Marx definitely did not espouse a “unilinear model of development in which the society evolves in stages corresponding to its material production capacity.”

how can we be interpreting the Communist Manifesto so differently? it seems to me this is exactly what he argued. primitive communism becomes slave empires / feudalism becomes capitalism becomes socialism / communism. this isn’t Marx’s theory?

first, although the letter makes some statements which might appear to contradict Marx’s earlier writings, it’s necessary to point out that this is a private letter, not a published work like the Communist Manifesto, Capital, or his other works which form the basis for Marxist thought. it cannot be fair to say that just because Marx said something in a private letter in his later years, that this represents the “true” Marxist perspective, as opposed to all his published and widely-read books and pamphlets.

now then, i do think this letter is pretty interesting. the most striking statement is definitely “To save the Russian commune, a Russian revolution is needed.”

wait, Marx wants to preserve the Russian commune, that primitive, pre-capitalist, non-industrialized form of social production? alert the press! Marx has abandoned historical materialism!

but no, in the same letter Marx recommits himself to the supposed “progress” of the development of capitalism: “By going back a long way communal property of a more or less archaic type may be found throughout Western Europe; everywhere it has disappeared with increasing social progress.”

so Marx is really just making an exception for the Russian commune, which he sees as less “archaic” than other communal cultures. and what is his basis for distinguishing the Russian “agricultural commune from the more archaic types”?

first, because they have broken the “strong but tight bond” of natural kinship ties. and second, because “the private house, the cultivation of arable land in parcels and the private appropriation of its fruits permit a development of individuality which is incompatible with conditions in more primitive communities.” … “whereas in more archaic communities production took place communally and only the yield was shared out.”

this certainly calls into question Marx’s understanding of “the socialisation of the means of production” – is it compatible with private ownership??? an interesting debate could be had here!

more telling, though, is how Marx sees the Russian commune as different from more “archaic” communal cultures for the reason that it can accommodate itself to capitalism: “the Russian “rural commune” can preserve itself by… it can gain possession of the fruits with which capitalist production has enriched mankind, without passing through the capitalist regime.”

and what does he mean by “fruits” of capitalist production? “agricultural exploitation with the aid of machines, organised on a vast scale”.

so at the end of the day, we still don’t have a clear repudiation of capitalism’s colonization of communal societies around the world, or the destruction of ecosystems by industrialized agriculture. instead, we have Marx reaffirming his position that the destruction of communal society represents “social progress” in Europe, except in the possible exception of Russia, where private cultivation of land and private appropriation of yields may save it, IF it can gain possession of the “fruits” of capitalism, especially industrialization.

in your opinion, how does this contradict Russell Means’ analysis of Marxism? why is Marx so ambiguous and even apologetic when it comes to genocide of non-European cultures, apparently unable to make a clear and firm opposition to this destruction?

this is not a hypothetical question, but a sincere one.

in response to your other statement about blaming Socialists for the Holocaust – no, obviously the Nazis bare primary responsibility. however, are we forbidden from criticizing state socialists for their role in allowing the rise of Hitler? Wilhelm Reich’s excellent book “The Mass Psychology of Fascism” (https://endofcapitalism.com/2009/05/17/review-of-the-mass-psychology-of-fascism/) points out that the German Communists dismissed Nazism as a “temporary disorder”, because according to Marxist theory, communist revolution was inevitable. so perhaps they bear some responsibility after all.

finally, i’m confused by your insistence that Bolivia and Ecuador don’t have Marxist governments. i suppose it isn’t enough that their ruling parties are Marxist in policy and inspiration to qualify them as Marxist governments? what for you constitutes a Marxist government? Venezuela? Cuba? certainly not China?

Marx was very clear that the nature of proletarian revolution involved the seizure of the state, something Bakunin was very clear would lead to new and terrible forms of despotism. if places like Ecuador and Bolivia are not following in Marx’s footsteps, then where are they getting these state socialist ideas?

and i’m glad we agree, capitalism must end. the same for whatever terrible despotisms attempt to replace it, as well.
alex

p.s. please note i am not referring to Correa or Morales as “terrible despots”, but i also will not shy away from criticizing them for their developmentalist policies towards indigenous peoples.

I don’t think you can take this article in isolation, Alex, and so I think bobo has a valid view. What took Russell Means from the standpoint of this article (which is enlightening and challenging) to his later one? Where did he think he had gone “wrong”? What would have been his own critique of his own view?

I notice a passing reference to anarchism in the article, where he says: “I’m referring here to the so-called theories of Marxism and anarchism and “leftism” in general. I don’t believe these theories can be separated from the rest of the of the European intellectual tradition. It’s really just the same old song.” But he does not go on to offer a critique of anarchism per se. My own position – as an anarchist – is that I am against any kind of political absolutism. As Malatesta said: “We anarchists do not want to emancipate the people; we want the people to emancipate themselves.” That in itself may be as much a “European” idea as any other, but the principle there is that what works for the Lakota people has to come from the Lakota people, and can’t be imposed. This isn’t us being generous – it’s just how it has to be. When Nestor Makhno “handed out” parcels of land to the Ukrainian peasants that would have been despite his own political inclinations – he did it because that was what they wanted, that was the feeling from the ground up. When “Sub-commander Marcos” arrived in Chiapas spouting doctrinaire Marxism he found it meant little or nothing to the native people there; the wants they expressed were agrarian and communal in their libertarianism – a native view, not an intellectual, European view. He changed in the face of them. Same thing has to hold for the Lakota people and for anyone else. They know themselves. There are many ways in which they are like us, and in which there should be no borders or barriers between us, but primarily they know themselves and that’s that.

I have only one pedantic quibble with Russell Means in this article, and that is the origin of the word “Indian”. Columbus was Genoese, and his expedition was Castilian; the word “Hindustan” would be found in the language of neither, and the purpose of C’s voyage(s) was to discover a westerly route to the “Indies”. This point doesn’t detract from the main thrust of RM’s article, however.

I agree. There’s a gratuitous attack, evidently on the mere term “anarchism”, and then the piece goes on to express ideas which can be called anarchistic. He seems like at best another ignoramus regarding what anarchism is, since he’s only willing to engage in a hit-and-run attack.

Unless he does understand it and fears it as a refutation of his claim that European thought is fundamentally rotten to the core. In which case it would be part of his project to never deal with the ideas but just smear the term, and count on the general laymen’s ignorance to agree. That’s a very common procedure.

While I don’t insist on the term, and indeed I’m not yet always sure about calling myself an anarchist (but I usually do), the attack on the term here (not to mention on writing as such, which is of course not characteristically European at all; I guess Means sneers at the Mayans, for example) seems to be, well, an expression of bigotry.

It seems like he starts with a basically anti-European mindset, then focuses the attack on an easy target, a particular strain of Marxism. But that’s meant to stand in not only for the entire Marxian endeavor, but for all Western anti-capitalist endeavor. I’m not surprised to learn that he was a closeted “libertarian”.

i too am curious why Russell Means became a libertarian, and how he squares their obviously pro-capitalist politics with the survival of the Lakota people from the capitalist policies of the US government. the 2007 declaration of independence by the “Republic of Lakotah” by AIM activists (led by Means) surely hasn’t gotten much support from libertarians – i imagine.

however, that question is entirely separate from this article, which raises important and difficult questions for the left – are we opposed to capitalism because it is destroying the planet and indigenous cultures, or because it isn’t cutting us a big enough piece of the pie, or both? this goes to the core of the issues the left needs to grapple with – it cannot be easily dismissed.

this is why i reacted strongly towards bobo’s comment. focusing our attention of Russell Means’ personal politics can easily be a way of avoiding the serious questions raised about our own politics.

i also was disappointed that in the article RM dismisses anarchism without really addressing it. perhaps no one ever explained it to him. or perhaps people who tried to explain it to him did so in a eurocentric and condescending manner. who knows. i do agree with Marie’s statements that “what works for the Lakota people has to come from the Lakota people, and can’t be imposed.”

one thing i want to highlight in the article is when RM warns white people to really listen to his words, and not get defensive:

“But there is a peculiar behavior among most Caucasians. As soon as I become critical of Europe and its impact on other cultures, they become defensive. They begin to defend themselves. But I’m not attacking them personally; I’m attacking Europe. In personalizing my observations on Europe they are personalizing European culture, identifying themselves with it. By defending themselves in this context, they are ultimately defending the death culture. This is a confusion which must be overcome, and it must be overcome in a hurry. None of us has energy to waste in such false struggles.

Caucasians have a more positive vision to offer humanity than European culture. I believe this. But in order to attain this vision it is necessary for Caucasians to step outside European culture–alongside the rest of humanity–to see Europe for what it is and what it does.”

I didn’t react as a “European”, but I did as an anarchist (and as a writer). Maybe it’s not what he intended, but the thing read like a very common ploy: Start out with a belligerent, exclusionary scattershot attack, then tar anyone who objects to any pellet of the buckshot attack as reacting on the basis of something broadly being demonized, in this case “Europeanism”.

Sorry, I know this whole line of discussion is tangential to what you wanted the main point to be. My answer is both: capitalism destroys so much in the name of its “production”, far more than is worth the cost; and then it steals what is produced. So the workers not only lose everything which can’t be monetized, and most of what can be; they then also lose the production for which they made such a sacrifice.

(On the other hand, the communists and most kinds of socialists claim to want an equitable distribution, but they still consider the “creative destruction” to be worth it. That’s why the term state capitalism is often so apt.

I suppose that’s why I’d never call myself a Marxist although I’m interested in Marx and am Marxian-influenced. But for me the most important parts are the analysis of capitalism, especially the earlier emphasis on producer alienation, and the moral vigor and call to action.)

I broadly agree that each culture needs to find its own mode of self-liberation; I’m not a “classical liberal” in the sense that gets the likes of Stanley Fish all tangled up like in this piece I found so amusing this morning:

As a side issue, Alex, here is a blog entry I wrote a few weeks ago: http://mairibheag.blogspot.com/2010/09/diary-of-glass-half-empty-person-16.html
I’m drawing your attention to the more serious section (not the snippet about Tarzan). Now, a short blog piece cannot do justice to a topic, and what I have presented is really my own musing and speculation, and not a scholarly or researched essay. However you might find it interesting, given RM’s drift to the right.

for whatever reason, i didn’t react to Means’ article as “belligerent”, but as enlightening. but whatever. i very much appreciate your description of the nature of capitalist “production” and just wanted to highlight it:

“My answer is both: capitalism destroys so much in the name of its “production”, far more than is worth the cost; and then it steals what is produced. So the workers not only lose everything which can’t be monetized, and most of what can be; they then also lose the production for which they made such a sacrifice.”

this is a great description. i use the words “social and ecological trauma” to describe the same thing. commodity production is inherently destructive to the planet and to human beings. this is not only true for workers, but also for the communities destroyed by mineral extraction, pollution, etc., as well as for the individual consumers who become addicted to an alienated product and lose the ability to take care of their own needs without commodities mediating them.

of course we also can’t forget about the millions of people who, forced into poverty, cannot have their needs met because basic resources (food, water, etc) have become commodified!

since i refer to all of this as “trauma” (violence would be another word), it clarifies for me that the process of resisting and overcoming capitalism is ultimately a project of HEALING. healing ourselves, healing our communities, and healing the planet.

Isn’t the attack on writing as such the real weakness here? Without writing, no critical discussion of this sort. No ability to preserve an intellectual legacy, to go back and rework it. To come at things from a different angle. To play.

Instead, everything remains enclosed in the supposed non-alienated ‘intimacy’ of the moment. Locked within the temporality of speech.

I prefer writing. I guess that makes me an agent of colonialism. A destroyer of worlds.

I just read Russel Means speech for the first time. It was simple and brilliant. Now my question is: What ism respects humans and the earth? That ism is the true way we survive and maintain the planet. What ism does not pit us against each other and the planet?

Lots of truth here and much resonates with me and nature bats last and all that. However, the whiteman and his financier ancillas believe that they are where its at. Nietshe described the Will to Power as if you have the power we see things your way.

If we gave the land back and said hey we totally did you guys wrong, what would the american indians do? What would be your first move? Just curious your take on it. would revenge be on the menu? Also your views on how african americans and minorities would fit into this new way of living.

thanks for the comment Ronnie and Carminda. i’m not sure, because i’m not an American Indian, but i don’t think there are many American Indians who demand the restoration of lands stolen over the last 350 years. i think they would be justified to demand such a thing, but of course it could never actually happen.

i think a more realistic goal for us would be to learn about the American Indian cultures which capitalism has destroyed, and attempt to adapt our culture to be more like those of the American Indians, especially with regard to ecological sustainability and direct democracy.

Alex, I’ve appreciated reading the discussion generated by the article, glad to see that such an important older piece is getting some due consideration along with all those 1970s French and Italian pieces that anarchists seem so fascinated by.

Although I believe it’s been addressed in earlier comments, I want to mention (from maybe a more friendly standpoint to your position) that trying to retroactively associate what Means is talking about with Capitalism, per se, seems like summarily dismissing the main point of the piece. Forgive me if this is a needless reiteration. I have to take his word that he really is talking about European culture in general, however I think this makes a lot of sense, particularly within the context of a “Caliban and the Witch” type context. Europe as a cultural entity was responsible for attacking and in most cases destroying the earlier indigenous/traditional cultures that existed in Gaul, the lands of the Germanic tribes, etc. Those pre-European and pre-modern influences persisted on in various forms though. Maybe Federici talks about “early Capitalism” attacking “pre-capitalist holdovers” but I think it’s just as accurate to talk about Europe attacking pre-European holdovers. I think it’s absolutely worth it to watch out for European assumptions and beliefs finding their way into our theories or activities, in addition to but distinct from capitalist tendencies.

(Of course there is a trend for some people to simply equate Europe=Capitalism and vice versa, which confuses matters in my opinion but there you have it)

This probably ties in to Means’ attack on anarchism as well. It must be remembered that at the time anarchism was not the movement/theory body that it is today. Probably Means had only ever come in to contact with anarchists who were for all intents and purposes just towing an anti-state but otherwise traditional Marxist line. The introduction to “Marxism and Native Americans” written by Ward Churchill seems to confirm this, as his only stated interaction with an anarchist reveals that the anarchist in question was no more open to listening to Indigenous questions or critiques than say, the RCP. As such I think his throwing anarchism in with the rest was probably legitimate from that position. Since that time anarchism has changed immensely and I believe a lot of anarchists have come to essential agreement with the notion that Europe as such must be killed, not just Capitalism. Many anarchist individuals and organizations have become much more aware of the importance of solidarity (for lack of a better term) with indigenous peoples as well. As such I think that a similar comment made today could be more legitimately debated.

As a last comment I want to respond to your latest suggestion, Alex. On the contrary I would point out that quite a few indigenous activists and scholars have asserted that land recovery for indigenous people is a worthy goal, although at the same time most of these individuals usually add that they understand that the majority of the European population in America is not going to leave (for better or worse). Churchill in “Acts of Rebellion”, for example, outlines several different strategies for how significant land recovery could be achieved, and to what effect. Recently there have been efforts by non-indigenous groups (including anarchist groups) acting in solidarity to raise funds to buy traditional lands for the expressed purpose of turning them over to local traditional tribal ownership and control. In other cases tribes have taken it upon themselves to raise funds for the same purpose. And of course more militant land seizures continue all throughout the Americas. I think that ethically and tactically it makes sense for anarchists to support all of these measures.

As for European descendants learning from American Indian cultures here in America, in a limited (purely material) sense this might be necessary to build up an understanding of sustainability, but the danger of stumbling into cultural appropriation (a “benign” extension of genocide) must be recognized and avoided at all costs. Indigenous activists and scholars have pointed out on many occasions that they would prefer if we learned as much as we could about our own indigenous, pre-European cultures, instead of learning all sorts of minute details about theirs.

wow, Annika, this is one of the most thoughtful comments I’ve ever received. thank you!

I agree completely about the land-reclamation issue, sorry if somewhere I appeared to contradict that. especially since the US govt apparently is offering college graduates tons of money to move to plains states like Kansas, the only just thing would be to offer the same and more to Native Americans.

as for the first question, it seems you could enlighten me a bit on the cultural construction of “Europe”. my simple understanding is that “Europe” didnt really become integrated until the formations of capitalism around 1500, as discussed for example in Wallerstein’s “The Modern World System I”. what Federici brings to my awareness is that this economic integration/accumulation also depended upon an accumulation of violence, against women through the witch hunts, against poor “Europeans” through the land enclosures and religious wars, against Africans, Asians and Native Americans through slavery, colonization and genocide. all of this was what Marx called “primitive accumulation”, except that Federici reminds us that it never ended, it just continued and expanded along with capitalism.

it seems by mentioning the Gauls, etc., you’re pointing to an earlier series of accumulations that gave birth to the idea of Europe as a cultural entity. can you define this more? i’m really curious and fairly ignorant about it. are we really talking about the Romans? Charlemagne? or are we going back much further to the introduction of agriculture into Europe and the displacement of hunter-gatherers? even to the annihilation of the Neanderthals? i guess, at what point does “European” culture exist, and at what point is it problematic?

without greater knowledge of this “forgotten” history, it seems hard for me to draw the line, since you could easily trace each of these steps (agriculture, Empire, etc) back out of Europe to the Fertile Crescent. whereas capitalism was a uniquely European invention, right?

“i think they would be justified to demand such a thing, but of course it could never actually happen” Oh… but it could. The same way we took it from them, but in reverse… I see your point though about learning their culture etc.. It is exactly what we should have done in the FIRST place.

Not sure what to say about this article. I certainly understand the frustration that obviously underlies the piece, but quite frankly, to pick on Newton (and by implication, calculus) borders on the absurd. Maya civilization built stepped pyramids, they employed and developed forms of mathematics and systemic thinking, the Egyptians and Chinese did the same, and there’s no evidence to suggest “Europe” had anything to do with it (indeed these civilizations all evolved independent from each other, long before European civilization as we know it emerged — suggesting that systemic and mathematical thinking is perfectly consistent with human nature). Likewise, the Arabs made some of the most important contributions to mathematics (like algebra). Also (to reiterate something noted in another comment above), Columbus was searching for the East Indies, this is a well documented fact, thus, the contention by Mr. Means has no basis in fact. Moreover, his “hit & run” attack on anarchism, without elaboration, amounts to a bare assertion and illustrates a lack of understanding of this intellectual tradition (or for that matter, the Marxian intellectual tradition). Anarchism allows us to have these differences. It allows the Lakota people to live however they wish, and other peoples to do the same. It deplores coercion and authoritarianism, thus an “anarchist tribe” would have never attacked a Lakota tribe (unless violently provoked). Finally, if it is true that Mr. Means was (at one time) a self-professed libertarian, then it’s hard for me to not see a potentially dubious motive in his rhetoric.

There is a tremendous amount to dissect here. Marx was guilty of many of the things Means accuses him of, Engels more so, as for instance they supported the US conquest of northern Mexico because the ‘yankee capitalists’ would more fully exploit its resources and also bring the Pacific more fully into an integrated global economy and thus hasten the material basis for socialism. European imperialism and capitalism is one form of culture, economy and politics, now the dominant one, on the planet. The theft of indigenous land, conquest and sometimes extermination of indigenous people in the Americas — and the ongoing genocide and war to enforce and maintain that conquest — are the continuing crimes at the base of that system, along with racial chattel slavery and the colonization of people of African descent.

But there were many cultures on Turtle Island before the Europeans beginning with Columbus got here, and some of them were quite capable of empire building and oppression/domination of other peoples and irrational accumulation on their own before the Europeans got here. That’s why the Spanish were so quickly able to conquer, by using the divisions among the indigenous who had been oppressed by the Aztec empire. Similarly the Inca had subjugated and dominated pre-existing indigenous cultures in the Andes before the Europeans arrived. So attributing the problem merely to “European” culture is not all that helpful to finding a solution.

Marx himself also had a very clear critique of industrialization and capitalism for violating what he called the “metabolism” of humanity within nature, creating a destructive “metabolic rift” (depleting the soil, polluting the water and air, etc). However, Marx and Marxists have generally seen the necessity for the completion of the bourgeois ‘revolution’ in land and agriculture (or some other form, apparently, given the discussion about the Russian commune) that would allow the realization of a substantial (but sustainable) “surplus” from the land. This is an important reason the Russian and Chinese revolutions both degenerated into state capitalism; another was the role of Great Russian and Han chauvinism and the imperial model for the Soviet and Chinese socialist states. Lenin condemned the Czarist empire as a prison house of nations, but the Soviet system essentially reproduced and maintained it.

Abstraction and written language are hardly only European; writing along with humanity, apparently arose in Africa. Writing and agriculture apparently arose independently several times among widely separated and non-communicating groups of humans, including some in the “Americas.” Class society and forms of capital arose independently among many different human cultures, including in Asia, Africa and Oceania, and the Americas, without any European domination or influence. So did examples of destructive cultural practices that over-rode natural ecological capacities of the physical environment resulting in social devastation as well. Although writing is an important technology and has enabled many other cultural and scientific developments, there is plenty of abstraction in non-literate societies and their thinking (including abstracting ‘spirits’ and ‘Great Spirit’). Similarly, there were indigenous, tribal and matriarchal societies all over what later became known as Europe that were conquered and suppressed at enormous human cost and ecological devastation, such as deforestation, as a particular form of culture, economy and politics came to dominate Europe. Definitions of cultural regions and even concepts of ‘geography’ are very malleable. “Europe” as someone said is a pimple on the ass of Asia. Is “Russia” European? Is Turkey? The French claimed for a long time that Algeria was an inseparable part of France. The “Moors” conquered and held parts of what later became Spain. The Ottomans conquered and held large sections of the Balkans. The Mongols and the Huns invaded, conquered and settled large portions of what later became Europe.

There’s a lot more to be said about all these subjects, and none of this is to deny the centrality of European settler colonialism and white supremacy to the fix we find ourselves in, nor the Euro-centrism of many Marxists and anarchists. But charting a way forward requires self-critical analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of many cultures, ideologies and strategies for liberation and ecological restoration.

Marx himself understood that capitalism was created on the basis of the land and precious metals stolen from the indigenous peoples of the Americas and on the basis of the unpaid labor of enslaved Africans imported onto those lands. That was “primary” (AKA primitive) accumulation. It is not the case that European conquest proceeded on the basis of capitalist development in Europe — the opposite is true, capitalist development in Europe, including the enclosures that drove peasants into the ranks of the proleatriat, proceeded on the basis of the prior land theft, genocide and slavery in the Caribbean and the “new world” continents. The earliest forms of CAPITAL itself were that stolen, privatized land and those stolen, privatized PEOPLE — slaves were not originally a commodity so much as CAPITAL itself. Labor as a commodity arose later. “Marxists” need to understand this (as Marx did) to get anywhere. What makes it, breaks it. To end capitalism, you must end the land theft, genocide, colonialism and slavery that birthed it.

I’m a person who actually heard this speech in 1980, the Gathering more or less marked the end of uranium mining in the Dakotas (Now if we could only get them to actually clean up the 1000+ abandoned open pit uranium mines in the Dakotas)

To most American Indians and especially the Sioux (I’m half Dakotah) there is no real difference at the ‘end of day’ between Capitalism and Communism …. It’s the “Same ol’ song and dance” to us

And make no mistake Communism destroyed as many Indigenous Tribal Cultures as Capitalism did, they just did it in Asia, the Soviets in southwest Asia and the Chinese in southeast Asia while Capitalism destroyed the Indigenous Tribal Cultures of North and South America …. Everyone seems to have had a hand in Africa …. well except American Indians

But what would we Dakotah/Lakota know, we’ve only had a Representative Republic, the Oceti Sakowin for over 500 years ,,,,, second only to the Iroquois as the oldest continuous Representative Democracy in the world today ….. The US Constitution didn’t give us a single Right we didn’t already possess at birth and took away many we once had

People need to get a handle on the difference between the materialist philosophy of the British Empire, and the more spiritual idealist philosophy that existed in central Europe, Germany in particular. The blanketing of all these materialist and exploitative as “European” is using a broad brush stroke where differentiation is absolutely necessary at this point in the conversation.